A few months back, I was helping a very large customer of ours to help simplify as well as automate their process of trading financial instruments. During one of my many visits to their office, I met a person who was trying to explain to me his job in supporting the people that are involved in this super complex process. I always ask a lot of questions — until they’re totally annoyed and ready to kick me out of the room — to get a complete understanding of the business rationale behind whatever they’re thriving for and their personal motivation behind it. Something unusual happened at this meeting. Instead of getting into the gory technical details of how they get things done, he chose to tell me a short and simple story.

“You know, um.. there’s this early morning meeting everyday that Peter goes to with a bunch of other people. They all gather around a large table in a dimly lit conference room with a bunch of printed spreadsheets, a laptop, and a large calculator. Peter has a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other hand talking to people who have coffee cups in their one hand and cigarettes in the other hand. This is their lives. I am concerned about Peter and I want him to stop smoking. Can you please help me?”

Now, this is the job that I love that makes me get out the bed and run for it. This is the human side of enterprise software. It’s not boring.

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Technology, Design, and Innovation strategist at the Office of the CEO, SAP, focusing on technology and architecture strategy and strategic operational, product, and management innovation. Adjunct faculty at Santa Clara University and San Jose State University with the department of computer engineering teaching graduate classes. Frequent speaker at conferences, special events, Chirag blogs at Cloud Computing.